


Champagne

by mambo



Series: four years of college and plenty of knowledge [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: (sorry), Also A Little Smut, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bucky Barnes Attempts A Drunken Lindy Hop, Cheesy Winter Formals, College, College AU, Frat Boy!Bucky, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Punk!Steve, Steve Rogers Is A Big Fan Of This American Life, University, University AU, but not too much, surprising no one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 16:41:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2117160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mambo/pseuds/mambo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve grabs Bucky’s hand and intertwines his fingers with Bucky’s in the way that Bucky loves. “I’ve never had champagne before.” He glances up at Bucky over his glasses.</p><p>“It’s sweet, bubbly. Sorta like you.”</p><p>(After convincing Steve to come with him to his fraternity's Winter Formal, Bucky has to deal with the fact that he's maybe falling in love with this little punk.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Champagne

**Author's Note:**

> Because I couldn't deal with not having Bucky Barnes's frat boy POV.
> 
> Note: there are a lot of time skips and jumping around in this story.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

—Winston Churchill

**…**

It’s not really a secret that Bucky Barnes thinks Steve Rogers is adorable. At least, not at this point. Though apparently, Bucky was pretty opaque, even when he was trying to keep it a secret, but that’s all water under the bridge now that the two of them are together. The only person who ever seems surprised at it now is Steve himself, who gets all red and flustered, which just sort of emphasizes the adorability of Bucky’s pint-sized boyfriend.

 _Boyfriend_.

It still feels novel, but it also feels _good_.

“C’mon,” Bucky begs, laying half-naked in bed with Steve while they listen to some podcast that Steve can’t miss, can _never_ miss, even when they could be making out.

“Shut up Bucky, Ira’s narrating this story and—“

Bucky groans and falls back on his pillow because his boyfriend is a complete dweeb. _Boyfriend._ Steve Rogers is Bucky Barnes’s boyfriend and the thought of it is enough to make Bucky lean over and press his lips to Steve’s bare shoulder. Steve shudders beneath him, closes his eyes and bites down on his lip. Bucky nips the skin there, careful not to do it too hard (there was the whole incident with the Thanksgiving Hickey and Sarah Rogers Realizing At Once What It Was And Well At Least You Boys Figured It Out I Was Getting Worried There That You’d Never Get Over Yourselves, which was so embarrassing that Bucky thought he would’ve died right there had it not been for how happy he was).

“Bucky, stop it, I want to listen—“

“I’ll stop if you’ll be my date for the Sigma Pi formal.”

Steve glares as Bucky licks a stripe across Steve’s shoulder. Steve squirms in a way that Bucky knows isn’t bad. He flicks Bucky’s ear with his fingers. “Fine,” Steve says, huffy but blushing. “But I get to choose what I wear.”

“Like you’d let me dress you up.”

“Shut up Bucky; I’m listening.”

Bucky lets himself make a small, contented noise as he snuggles against Steve’s chest. He’s almost able to pay attention while Ira Glass intones about things that happen to average Americans (or at least average if you’re kind of bougie, not that he’d tell Steve that). He rubs his thumb against Steve’s side and shuts his eyes, thinking that if he never moves again, it would be too soon.

(Of course, he does move again. Because as soon as _This American Life_ is over, Steve pulls himself on top of Bucky and trails kisses up and down his neck and jaw until it’s almost too much. They’ve been together for two weeks, only two weeks, but Bucky wasn’t sure he could ever feel so happy.)

**…**

See, the thing is, Bucky is sure that it can’t last.

Some day in the future, Steve’ll figure out that Bucky’s not who he thinks he is. Because Steve looks up at him with his blue eyes like Bucky’s some kind of perfect, which is such a goddamn lie. Even after Bucky Fucks Up Royally, Gets Drunk And Nearly Gets Them Killed By Brock Rumlow (which is much, much different than Steve Runs In To Protect Some Poor Kid And Nearly Gets Them Killed By Brock Rumlow because Steve had a good reason whereas Bucky was just being self-destructive) Steve just forgave him. Probably thought it was some kinda anomaly, that Bucky hasn’t been lashing out at the people he cares about for his entire fucking life.

But he has. It’s part of Bucky’s DNA, at this point. And it’s just a matter of time until Steve figures that out and Bucky’s alone again.

**…**

“You convinced him yet?” Monty asks the next day.

They’re studying in the lounge together, on comfortable leather chairs next to an oak table. December may mean hot chocolate and Sigma Pi’s formal, but it also means that finals are looming on the near horizon. Monty—who would probably prefer it if Bucky called him Falsworth like Dum Dum does, but he never went to British boarding school like Monty did and Bucky’s never been a last names kinda guy—has it especially rough this semester. He’s doing a senior honors thesis for his archaeology major and it’s due next Friday, coincidentally the day before the formal. It’s kinda sweet that he remembers that Bucky was having trouble convincing Steve to go at all, given the stress he’s under. “Mm-hmm,” Bucky says, flipping the page of his history textbook. “Took some convincin’ but he says he’ll go.”

“Very good. Rogers seems like a nice chap.”

“I like him,” Bucky says, smiling down at his textbook before remembering that he’s reading about the atrocities committed by American tire companies in Africa over rubber.

Monty chuckles. “I think that’s a given. You’ve been mooning over the lad for months.”

“Yeah, well.”

**…**

And it’s not just that Bucky is kinda nuts, he just happens to be pretty inexperienced with all this stuff, too.

They haven’t gone too far; he and Steve’re taking it slow, which probably more of a relief to Bucky than Steve, all things considered since Steve’s told him about giving sloppy hand jobs to Miles Morales underneath the high school bleachers and starting his school’s LGBTQIA+ society. Bucky, on the other hand, has kissed a few girls at parties and tried not to look at the other guys in the football locker room. He was more worried about never having anybody know anything than getting some kind of experience for when the moment matters.

(Not all of Brooklyn’s been gentrified quite yet.)

There was Peter Quill, however. Towards the end of the previous year, Bucky got drunk at a party the Alpha Delta Phis were throwing and ended up in the corner of the room with a senior named Peter Quill. The same thing happened the next weekend and then the next. It was always hot and sweaty; Bucky was also always drunk. Peter was happy and friendly, usually high rather than drunk and barely able to pass his classes. 

At the end of his first year in college, Bucky hooked-up with Peter Quill a few times. It was hot and sweaty; Bucky was always drunk. Peter was a senior anthropology major and only graduated by the skin of his teeth. It was nothing serious. Bucky had let himself experiment and to be sloppy. And Bucky had also let himself hate himself afterwards.

But with Steve, he doesn’t just wanna make out in the corners of fraternity parties.

He wants to dress Steve up and take him out to fancy dinners and to wear sweats and eat take out on the floor. He wants to take Steve to the avant garde plays that he likes so much but Bucky hates and to hold Steve’s hand when he feels like he’s about to fall asleep. He wants to kiss Steve on every inch of campus, showing the old trees and buildings that they were there, that they saw this and felt this and it mattered.

And he wants to wrap Steve’s skinny neck up in the oversized black scarf that his ma knitted for him before she died. Bucky has several souvenirs of his ma—not his birth mother, of course, but the woman who raised and loved him and his sister and got them out of the hellish foster care system—but none that he loves nearly as much as that scarf. He can still remember her knitting it for him, him asking for it to be extra long and her rolling her eyes but complying anyway. She knew she was sick then, but she hadn’t told him or Becky. The night that she gave him the scarf she broke the news. So when Bucky wears it, he likes to think she’s walking with him, or at least watching from up above (not that he’d ever tell anybody about that weird delusion). And since she and Steve will never meet, it feels appropriate for Steve to wear the scarf. It’s like he’s introducing them, like she’s giving them her blessing since Bucky knows, he just _knows_ , that she’d love Steve as much as Bucky—

Oh. Where did that come from?

**…**

“So this formal,” Steve begins the Wednesday before the dance. They’re sitting together in the dining hall, chairs too close together and knees knocking. Steve’s got his sketchpad out, scribbling out ideas for a final project that he should have been half-done with by now. Bucky’s tapping out an essay called, “Liberia: America’s Failed Experiment and the Repercussions of American Imperialist Involvement in Western Africa” on his laptop. “What’s it like?”

“It’s fun,” Bucky says. “Everyone dresses up, takes a date.”

“How fancy?”

“I’ll be wearin’ a suit.” Steve frowns at his sketchpad. “I don’t care what you wear, though. Just so long as you come with me. Show up in a toga, for all I care. Everybody’ll love you no matter what.” (It’s been three weeks, Bucky. Lay off the L-word, won’t ya? Just because you thought of it once doesn’t mean you have to toss and turn thinking about it every damn night.) “Well, I mean, most of ‘em already do. Dum Dum was half-cheerin’ when I told him you were comin’.”

“I bet that was a sight.”

Bucky snorts. “You don’t hafta feel weird about it, ‘kay?” Bucky puts his hand on the back of Steve’s neck, careful since Steve doesn’t like too much PDA. He lets go way sooner than he wants to, moving his hand back down to his laptop.

“I don’t feel weird,” Steve says, sounding like he feels real weird about it.

Bucky smiles. “Sure ya don’t.” Steve elbows him in the side and Bucky sticks out his tongue at him before reaching out and pushing Steve’s glasses up from where they’ve slid down his nose. “It’s gonna be good, Stevie. No matter what you wear. You’re gonna look adorable and handsome and we’re gonna eat stuffed mushrooms and bacon-wrapped chicken on a stick and drink champagne. Then we’re gonna dance a little and joke around with the guys and we can leave whenever you want, no questions asked or hard feelings. Got it?”

Steve grabs Bucky’s hand from where it hovers by his glasses, pulling it down and intertwining his fingers with Bucky’s in the way that Bucky loves. “I’ve never had champagne before.” He glances up at Bucky over his glasses and. And.

“It’s sweet, bubbly. Sorta like you.”

Steve rolls his eyes and pulls away, but Bucky can see the pink on his cheeks. It’s real hard to to focus on Liberia after that.

**…**

It starts in Schmidt’s class. Not on the first day, where he was just relieved that Dum Dum and Gabe would be suffering through Professor “Red Skull” Schmidt alone. But he notices Steve on day two, shuffling into class, staring at his feet and only mumbling when Clint Barton says hello. He notices the piercings on Steve’s ears, the shaved sides of his head. He sits two rows in front of him, so it’s not creepy that Bucky can see the ink stains on the side of Steve’s hand, or the way that he flips to the exact right page of _Gatsby_ for each question Schmidt throws out, but never volunteers an answer.

He runs into Clint after class and it doesn’t even sound weird when he asks, “You know the kid who sits next to you?”

“Uh, Rogers. Steve Rogers. He’s a little out there.”

“That’s rich comin’ from you, Clint.”

Clint flips him off—without much heat—and heads off.

As soon as he gets back to his room, Bucky gets out his laptop.

He doesn’t send Steve a friend request right away, since the kid doesn’t have too many friends. Must be picky. Smart move. But he does look through the few photos he’s got set to public. One of him hunched over a sketchbook. Another of him and a few friends from high school on a beach (it looks like Coney Island, but Bucky can’t be sure). He clicks on the ‘About’ tab on Steve’s profile.

Interested in: Men and Women.

Bucky manages to shut the window before slamming his laptop closed.

He stares at the shut piece of machinery, thinking of how he’s left that part of own profile blank. That some people know, the ones who are most important to him, but most of the world has no idea that Bucky Barnes likes guys. Even though he unfriended most of the people he knew from high school during his gap year, the ones who say ‘faggot’ like it didn’t mean anything and get fucked-up every weekend (not that he didn’t, Bucky reminds himself, but he never did it for fun), he still doesn’t have the courage to let everyone know. Not now. Probably not ever.

But Steve Rogers, who can barely say hello to the guy sitting next to him in class lets everyone know, plain as day. Even strangers who look him up after class because they can’t stop thinking about the ink stains on the side of his hand.

And it just surprises him, is all, how brave this kid is.

**…**

Last year, Bucky went to the dance stag. He wasn’t a Sigma Pi yet, but Dum Dum had invited him—because Dum Dum had been courting him for spring rush since September—and Bucky had nothing else to do that night. He spent most of the night with Jim, joking about Dum Dum’s drunken dancing and meeting the guys that’d become his brothers in a few short months. He danced with the dates of some of the Sigma Pi members and a very drunk Mary Jane Watson asked if he wanted to go back to her place (a request that he had denied). It had been a good night, a fun night.

**…**

Steve knocks on Bucky’s door four minutes late, which is ten minutes earlier than Bucky expected, so Bucky’s already a bit flustered when he opens the door and—

“Shut up,” Steve says, looking at his feet and blushing.

Bucky can feel himself beaming, unable to stop himself.

Steve’s standing at his door in a pair of leather loafers, tight black dress pants, white shirt, skinny black tie and a plaid dinner jacket. It’s green and red, almost Christmasy, with big gold buttons that clash with his piercings. It’s just a little too big on him like he dug it out of some bin at the Goodwill on Drax Street. And if Bucky weren’t so excited to show him off to everyone he possibly can, he’d pull Steve inside and pull every last bit of it off of him.

“Look at you,” Bucky says, grinning.

And Steve being Steve, he takes it the wrong way. “I can… If it’s too much, I can go—“

Bucky grabs Steve’s arm and drags him inside the room. He looks up at Bucky through his perfect, dorky glasses as Bucky shuts the door behind him. “You’re perfect,” Bucky says, pulling Steve in and wrapping his arms around him. “Everybody’s gonna be jealous that I have the cutest date of anybody there.”

“Cute?” Steve asks, incredulous and trying to wiggle out of Bucky’s grip. Bucky lets him go, even if he doesn’t exactly wanna. “This isn’t cute, it’s _punk_.” Bucky snorts. “Tommy Hilfiger wore something similar to the Met Ball.”

Bucky turns back to his mirror and tries to fix up his bow tie. “I think the fact that you based your look after Tommy HIlfiger means you lose half your punk points for the evenin’.” His fingers are clumsy and he can’t get it straight.

Steve pops up behind him. “Let me,” he says.

“You can tie a bow tie?” he asks, turning around.

Steve reaches up for the bow tie and frowns. “Better than you can.”

“Then I think you’re losin’ all your punk points. Real sorry ‘bout that. You’ll havta play again tomorrow.” 

When Steve finishes up with the bow tie he jabs the side of Bucky’s neck with his index finger. “Am too a punk,” he mutters, retreating to the other side of the room because sometimes he’s actually a five year-old, and sometimes Bucky likes that part of Steve the best.

**…**

“Guys like you beat me up in high school. I didn’t think you were serious,” Steve says to him in the art studio, the night that Bucky finally grew some balls and told himself that he’d just go in and talk to the guy rather than wait around for a text that was never gonna come. And it takes Bucky a second to register what that means.

Because on one hand, it means that Steve assumes that he’s like the Psi U guys, doing cocaine in the bathroom and beating up on pledges. It means that Steve thinks he’s like the other football players on Bucky’s high school football team, casually tripping the little guys in the hallway and giving them black eyes when they dared talk back to them.

And Bucky wants to scream because _he is not like those guys_. But.

But.

But Steve’s always going out on a limb. He doesn’t say much, but when he does he always tells the truth. Bucky’s a great liar. He’s always been lying, stepping off to be a bystander. Yeah, he wasn’t beating anyone up, but he watched it happen a hundred times without stopping it. Guilty by association, trying not to feel anything as the strong pummeled the weak.

So he stutters something about _being serious,_ about _liking Steve_. And he meant to tell him, that night. To brace himself for the inevitable rejection and say, “Hey I like you and I thought you may have liked me back and it’s cool if you don’t, but I want you. I want you.” But instead he gets scared and backs down, telling himself that it’s because Steve doesn’t know him, doesn’t understand him yet. But it’s actually because Bucky wonders if Steve could really like a guy like him, who can’t even put the fact that he likes guys on his Facebook profile.

So he decides he’ll try to be someone who Steve Rogers could like.

(And he ends up sleeping in the hallway of Steve’s dorm the next night and going off the deep end a few times, but if being honest means that he can wrap his scarf around the tender places of Steve’s neck that Bucky loves to kiss, then it’s worth it. It’s worth it.)

**…**

Bucky must take a hundred pictures. Pictures of Steve, pictures of his friends, pictures of the jazz combo that set up next to the dance floor and, of course, more pictures of Steve.

“C’mon Buck,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “Get the camera out of my face.”

Bucky slides the phone back into the pocket of his jacket. “But I wanna be able to remember this night forever.”

Steve’s mouth thins in a way that Bucky knows means that he’s happy. “You’re cheesy.”

“Only ‘cuz you make me that way.”

They’re in the lounge of McCoy, where the Sigma Pis put on all their parties. The formal is the only closed event that they put on each year. Whereas the other stuff they throw is open to the whole campus, the formal is black tie and by invite only. Most of the guys bring a date and there’s always live music. This year they opted for a jazz combo to play the first half, doing covers of all the old standards (Bucky has the feeling that this was requested for his sake, since he’s always blasting Glen Miller while he’s studying and annoying the guys who live next door with his dorky music). When it gets later, a DJ will take over and play things that the guys want to hop around to, but it’s not until midnight that things get wild. Until then, there’s a sense of decorum in the room.

The room has a buffet table set up to the side of the room with silver containers of rubbery chicken, green beans and a few other traditional banquet foods. They even hired a few tuxedo-clad waiters to go around with plastic flutes of champagne and canapés on silver trays. The lights are dimmed and there are cheesy, icicle holiday lights draped around the walls, accentuated by electric candles with flickering flames placed on every table-like surface of the room.

It’s cheesy. Ridiculous. It’s perfect.

The band starts playing _Moonlight Serenade_ and Bucky grabs Steve’s arm. “Dance with me?” he asks, half-convinced that Steve’ll say no.

But Steve bites his lip, nods shyly, and lets Bucky guide him to the dance floor. There aren’t many couples dancing yet—most are still eating—but there’re a few swaying here and there. Bucky pulls Steve up to the middle of the dance floor and wraps an arm around his waist. Neither know how to dance, not really, but Bucky tries to lead, holding Steve’s hand in his and trying to ham it up just enough that Steve is embarrassed of him.

“This is,” Steve says, then stops himself.

Bucky stops his hammy act. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. He smiles, lighting up his whole face. “I’m happy.”

Bucky pulls him closer, leaving absolutely no room for Jesus. “Yeah?” he asks. Steve nods and a trumpet blares. “I’m real happy, too. Happy you came with me. Makes everything more special when you’re nearby.”

Steve looks over at the band, then down to his feet. Bucky takes the opportunity to switch the direction of their swaying a bit unexpectedly. Steve trips a little and ends up falling against Bucky, who just presses him in closer. “That’s a dirty trick,” Steve says. Bucky can’t see his face, but he’s sure he’s got a little pout on.

Bucky chuckles, leans down closer to Steve’s ear. “Just wanted you close, is all.”

They dance until the end of the song; when it’s over Bucky says, “Let’s get some champagne before they run out.” Steve agrees, letting Bucky wrap an arm around his shoulder as he guides him over to where a bartender is pouring out the champagne.

**…**

Kissing Steve Rogers isn’t like kissing anybody else Bucky’s ever kissed. He may’ve messed it up the first time, but every time since then it’s been the best. Steve’s mouth is always soft and sweet, but insistent. And he doesn’t make fun of Bucky when Bucky grins halfway through a kiss because he’s so goddamned happy just being with Steve, being allowed to do this. It just makes Steve push in closer, to pull a hand through Bucky’s hair or nudge a leg between Bucky’s thighs. Kissing Steve Rogers is like how Bucky has always imagined kissing would be like, sweet and passionate and enough to make him want to burst with happiness (and, well, other stuff).  

**…**

Steve drinks one glass of champagne, then another. They alternate dancing and sitting, Bucky making sure that Steve doesn’t get too out of breath, Steve letting Bucky try to teach him how to lindy hop (a dance that Bucky only tenuously knows; he watched a Youtube tutorial on it once). Steve also lets Bucky take a picture of him kissing Steve’s cheek, which Bucky’s gonna make his Facebook profile picture because he’s happy and Steve’s cheeks are flushed and.

And he wants to show it off, to show _Steve_ off and.

And Steve makes him want to be brave.

**…**

They stay until the band switches over to the DJ. Dum Dum’s first on the dance floor, barreling over to the front with his date and whooping loud to some Ke$ha song. Dum Dum takes a half-drunk bottle of champagne with him, sloshing it around with one hand as he sings along to the song in a high falsetto that carries over the noise of the crowd.

“Wanna get out of here?” Bucky whispers in Steve’s ear. They’ve been sitting in a corner with Jim and his date, but the other couple got up to dance, leaving Steve and Bucky flushed and drunk and alone.

Steve shrugs. “Not sure I wanna go home.” His eyes flick up to Bucky’s and way he looks at Bucky sends a shiver down Bucky’s spine.

“Good point,” Bucky says, putting a hand on Steve’s knee. “It’s cold out. Wouldn’t want you catchin’ a cold, so you better come back to my room. I got a lotta blankets, and if you get real chilly I’ve heard that I’m pretty warm.”

“I think that sounds about right.”

Bucky watches Steve wet his chapped lower lip with his tongue; his throat goes dry.

It takes him a moment to catch his breath before saying, “Let’s go, then. Before Dum Dum pulls us out there—don’t think he won’t.”

“Don’t talk about Dum Dum. Don’t want your big mouth ruining the moment.”

“You’re right. I can think of a number of better uses for this mouth.”

Steve drags him right out of that room by the tie.

(Steve is the best boyfriend ever.)

**…**

It’s the last night of rush when Bucky pulls Dum Dum aside. Sigma Pi is having a small get together for the guys they’ve tapped to put a bid on. Bucky is one of those guys, and knows that he’ll accept the bid when he gets one. There’s no other fraternity he’d ever want to be in.

“I need to talk to you,” Bucky says, throat dry.

Dum Dum, unable to take any goddamn subject seriously, laughs. “Is it really so important that we’re missing the beer out there? Can’t it wait until—“

“I’m serious, Dum Dum.”

Though Dum Dum’s expression is incredulous, like nothing in the world could be more important than the keg of shitty light beer in the other room, he settles down. “You haven’t killed a guy, have you? Because there’s eternal brotherhood and whatnot, but I’m not sure I’m equipped to help you hide a body.”

Bucky shakes his head, too nervous to even laugh about it. “I’m gay,” he says, looking Dum Dum straight in the eyes.

Dum Dum, the asshole, just raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? So?”

“So if it’s gonna be a problem, I… I can back out now. You don’t have to bid. No hard feelings.”

“I’m gonna tell you something, Barnes. If anyone ever tells you that it’s a problem, you send them right over to me. I’ll make sure they never think It’s a problem again. If that’s who you are then it’s who you are. After you accept our bid, then you’re gonna be my brother and I’m gonna love you no matter who you love, no questions asked.”

Dum Dum’s not the first person Bucky told, but he’s always been the most important one.

**…**

Bucky barely manages to get the door open before Steve is on him, somehow managing to slam the door shut behind them. “Easy there, Rogers,” Bucky says, slipping off his shoes. “You might break somethin’.”

Steve sighs, flippant and pulls Bucky’s head down. He kisses him hard and open-mouthed, tasting like those garlic-y stuffed mushrooms and champagne. “Wanted to do this—” he says between kisses. “Since you tripped me—” another kiss “—on the stupid dance floor.”

Bucky, just as eager to say the least, moves from Steve’s mouth down to his jaw, then to his neck. He nips at Steve’s fragile skin, which elicits a groan from Steve that Bucky feels up and down his spine. Steve grabs at Bucky’s jacket, fumbling with the buttons for a moment before pushing it off of Bucky’s shoulders. Then he starts on Bucky’s shirt. Bucky lets go of Steve long enough for Steve to pull the button down off of Bucky’s body and for him to toss it onto the desk chair on the other side of the room. And then Steve’s back on him, thin fingers cool on the warm skin of Bucky’s back.

Still very notably fully clothed, Steve pushes Bucky back onto Bucky’s bed. He straddles Bucky’s waist and leans down on top of him, but the angle makes his heavy black glasses slip down to the edge of his nose. Bucky laughs as he pushes them back up on Steve’s face. “You havin’ fun up there?” he asks.

Steve pinches his shoulder and Bucky yelps.

“‘Course I am.” Steve leans back down and presses a kiss onto Bucky’s lips. It’s gentle, sweet and over too quick. “Everything’s fun when it’s with you.”

**…**

It wasn’t the first time Bucky’s gone nuts and he knows it’s not the last. He goes to a school counselor—who makes everyone call him Phil, which has always seemed a little weird to Bucky—but there’re still times that it all just gets to him in ways that he can’t handle. Those times have been fewer and farther in-between since college started, but the daunting prospect of lonely breaks on an empty campus always put him on edge and occasionally making him snap.

“Bucky,” Phil says when he answers the phone that night. “Bucky, it’s 2 in the morning.”

“I told Steve,” Bucky says. He’s sitting next to the lake, shivering since he had convinced himself before he left for Steve’s that he would either stay at Steve’s or go back home. He hadn’t managed either.

Phil takes a deep breath. “How’d it go?”

Phil knows all about Steve. Bucky sees Phil once a week on Monday mornings where he unloads the minute details of his week, even when it’s just mooning over Steve Rogers. Even before Bucky had met Steve, Bucky had told Phil about Steve and his Facebook profile, thinking it was just a part of his ongoing saga as a self-loathing, poor, homosexual kid from Brooklyn. Bucky’s not always sure that Phil likes him, but he seems to like Steve. He’s always encouraging Bucky to go hang out with him, to maybe not assume that Steve always knows what he’s thinking and to express himself a little better. Well, Bucky expressed himself. And it didn’t work.

“He pushed me away,” Bucky says, voice small, but still managing to crack.

“Push you away? Physically? Bucky, did he—“

“He didn’t try to beat me up. Jesus, Phil.”

“But he pushed you away?” 

Bucky likes Phil, likes the way that he doesn’t back down, even when the subject is hard. He likes it when Phil talks to him in a voice that is kind but firm. He doesn’t baby Bucky.

“I tried kissin’ him.”

There’s a shift from the other end of the line. Bucky doesn’t know anything about Phil’s life outside of his work. He doesn’t even know if Phil’s married, never even bothered to check for a wedding band. It seemed weird to him to know. Now he wishes he had asked. Maybe calling him at 2 in the morning was a bad idea, even if he said that he could call any time. Maybe—

“Bucky, you’re outside, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you come over to my place. It’s on the end of Quill street. I’ll make a pot of coffee and you can tell me what happened.”

Bucky nearly says no, but then he shivers and decides that maybe heading over to Phil’s is a better option than freezing to death.

Phil says that Bucky should’ve talked to Steve before he kissed him, that Bucky should go back home. Bucky says that he can’t stand being at school anymore, that it was a mistake to come here in the first place, since he doesn’t belong here (doesn’t belong anywhere, really). Phil says that’s not true, that just two weeks ago he said he was the happiest he’s been in a long time, that he’s doing just fine.

In a few days, Bucky will start believing him.

**…**

Steve is still _fully dressed_ when he starts pawing at the buckle of Bucky’s pants.

But he’s fumbling with it, unable to get it undone. “Steve, _Steve,_ ” Bucky says, grabbing Steve’s hands, trapping them where they hover over his crotch. “How much did you have to drink?”

“Um,” Steve responds, which isn’t promising. Bucky laughs and pulls Steve down for a quick kiss. “How about we take it slow, okay?”

“Bucky—“ Steve whines.

“I don’t want the first time we do anything like that to be when you’re piss drunk, bud.”

“But I want to,” Steve says, pushing his glasses up onto his nose and moving his hand down to cup Bucky’s terribly hard dick in his pants. “C’mon Buck.”

The feel of Steve’s hand on him, even through layers of clothes, makes it so Bucky can barely breathe. Steve seems to notice—the sneaky bastard—and squeezes a bit tighter. “Steve, buddy—“

Steve sighs, then flops down on the bed next to Bucky. “You know it wouldn’t be my first time, right?” he says quietly into Bucky’s shoulder. “So it’s not like I’d be upset that ’m drunk.”

Bucky shifts, moves his arm around Steve’s shoulders and presses a kiss to the side of his face. “Yeah but it’d be mine.” Steve double takes so quickly that Bucky can’t help but laugh. “That surprisin’?”

“But you’re…” Steve makes a small noise of confusion.

Bucky just smiles. “Never met somebody I wanted to before you.” He feels the champagne in his stomach, the fabric of Steve’s silly jacket on his bare side. “You’re special.”

Steve’s breath catches in his throat. “I think I’m.”

“What is it?”

“Never mind.”

Bucky’s heart is hammering in his chest. “You can say it, whatever it is, Steve.”

He turns his face into Bucky’s chest and his voice is muffled. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” he says.

It’s like being doused in cold water. Bucky feels sober, so sober, tears prickling the back of his eyes and he couldn’t tell you why. He presses his lips to Steve’s hair. “Me too, Steve. Me too.”

**…**

(It happens after their English final, strangely enough. It’s the last final for the both of them, and they head back to Bucky’s room exhausted and giddy. It starts with Steve jumping on Bucky, mad about some comment or another, and the tussle becomes Bucky’s lips on the hollow of Steve’s throat, and the sweet sound of Steve’s breath of as Bucky slips himself inside of him for the first time. Steve is tight and Bucky’s so afraid he’ll hurt him somehow, but Steve calls Bucky’s name again and again, wraps his fingers around Bucky’s and arches his back, meeting Bucky halfway there. When he comes, Bucky whispers Steve’s name, then yells it and Steve moans beneath him. When it’s over, they fall into each other’s arms, looking at each other then giggling, like they’re kids again. Steve is covered with a thin sheen of sweat, sparkling in the darkness and Bucky lets himself trace the contours of his face, his neck, his chest before Steve tells him that he’s gonna go to sleep now, if that’s alright.

Bucky feels young and old and _alive_ ; he also knows somewhere that he’s supposed to have lost something but. But. It’s Steve. And with him it didn’t feel like Bucky lost a thing; he just feels full.)

**…**

“Bucky, are you alright?”

Bucky laughs softly into the phone. It’s Saturday morning, his head hurts like hell and he woke-up in Steve Rogers’s bed. “Yeah Phil, I’m fine. I had an eventful night.”

“Please tell me you’re not in some kind of trouble.”

“Not really,” he says, thinking of Steve curled up in that sleeping bag, falling asleep as soon as he thought Bucky was sleeping. Bucky’s a good faker, which isn’t Steve’s fault at all. “Not in the way you’re thinkin’ right now.”

“Where did you spend the night?”

“Steve’s.”

There’s a pause. “Did you—“

“No,” Bucky says. “He was just bein’ a friend.” And now to the task at hand. “Phil,” he says, slow.

“Yes, Bucky?”

“I’m real thankful that you invited me over Thanksgivin’ dinner, but—“

 ****“You got a better offer?”

“Steve’s takin’ me back to Brooklyn with him. I’m gonna stay at his place”

“That’s…” Smooth-talking Phil Coulson stops, and Bucky’s almost glad he’s managed to surprise him for once. “And nothing happened between the two of you last night?”

“Not sure I remember every detail of it—“ Phil groans. “—But no. Nothin’.”

“Bucky, I know you’re excited about this, but promise me something.”

“What?” Bucky asks, not sure he’s gonna like what Phil’s got to say.

“Guard yourself.” Bucky lets himself swallow. “And don’t take it personally if things don’t turn out the way that you want them to. You’re a good guy, Bucky, and Steve obviously sees that. And I think that he’s a good influence on you. Up until this week, he’s kept you out of trouble.” (Oh, if Phil could’ve seen Steve last night, kneeing Brock Rumlow in the jewels…) “But if he doesn’t feel the same, there’s nothing you can do. Be his friend. Let yourself be his friend.”

Bucky thinks he can do that. He thinks that he can look at Steve Rogers curled up in a sleeping bag and be his friend. It won’t be easy, he thinks, but it’s doable. And he’ll be his cheerleader, too, in his corner no matter what. Maybe he’ll convince Steve to rush Sigma Pi next semester; they could be brothers, then. And Bucky could ruffle his hair or sling his arm around Steve’s shoulders and it wouldn’t mean a thing besides—

Bucky thinks he can be Steve Rogers’s friend. Watch him grow closer to Peggy Carter as her relationship with the long-distance boyfriend falls to pieces, since that always happens over Thanksgiving Break (the Turkey Drop, as some kids call it). Maybe Steve’ll turn to Bucky for advice about where to take her out or how to kiss her. He’ll take her to the Christmas-time formal next year, him wearing some kind of ridiculous suit, her all dolled up. He’d look up at her like she’s a million bucks and Bucky would have to watch it happen from across a room.

Bucky could do it. He just doesn’t want to.

“I’ll try,” Bucky says. “Happy Thanksgivin’, Phil.”

“You too, Bucky.”

**…**

Steve strips down to his boxers to sleep, curled up on Bucky’s side. Excepting those times that Steve’s asthma works up—too often in the asbestos-ridden buildings of Xavier’s campus—he falls asleep easily. This is something that Bucky knows. He also knows the feeling of Steve’s chest moving gently on him as he breathes. He knows he wouldn’t trade his place in the universe for any other, and he sometimes wonders how anyone could see Steve Rogers walking down the street and not want to be in the position that Bucky is in right now.

And Steve Rogers thinks he’s falling in love with Bucky.

And Bucky’s already sure he’s in love with Steve.

(It’s a good thing to have learned.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was never supposed to happen but somehow it did. What was also not supposed to happen is the final part to this series, which I am working on right now (well, theoretically; there's a good chance that I'm not working on it the moment you are reading this).
> 
> If you're interested in Keeping Up With the Kardashians, get cable. But if you're interested in keeping up with me, follow me at whtaft.tumblr.com.


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